Almost Normal

Summary: There's a boy with chewed nails, leaning on a flickering lamp post.
The sleeves of his hoodies are tatty, his hair in pathetic wisps. He looks tired and afraid.
And then the lights go out

Almost Normal

Naked and trembling,
Alan bit hard on his thumb, anxiously and pathetically. He felt it bleed onto
his teeth.
He was not tied down with chains, like the ones which swung threateningly from
the invisible ceiling. But he was trapped.
To release, he thought, as he felt more blood gush from beneath his nails…to
release was to escape.

Ice fell on his cheek, cascading down his neck and piercing any warmth he had
previously held inside himself. He had shrunk into a ball on the floor that was
infected with rust. In the womb, a child can sense his mother all around,
before its eyes are ever even open. She lines the walls, comforting those who
live in solitude inside her.

Yet here, no such
warmth greeted him.
Though the shadows forced blindness upon him, he could sense the slow movement
of hateful spiders on the walls. He felt their presence as though they crept
upon the base of his neck and beneath his clothes. Beneath his skin, fear was
taking hold.

Suddenly, two furious
eyes smashed into the room, slamming the metal grilled door behind them.
Breathing rapidly and heavily, the figure kicked a broken table out of its
path, smashing it into an explosion of wooden splinters. Terror clawed and sank
into Alan’s heart as she approached him in a rage, reaching for his throat.

“Why?!” she screamed.
“Why won’t you let me go?! Why do I still have to be here?! Why can’t I leave,
you SHITBUCKET!”
The nails of her shaking hands made a deep gash in his cheek in all of the
confusion. As Alan felt the warm blood on his cheek mingle with his tears of
horror, powerful hands clamped on top of his Adam’s apple.

“You are WEAK!” she
hissed. “Can’t take care of yourself?! Need mother’s milk? This could have been
so mother-fucking EASY!”
The figure’s hands tightened and Alan felt as though he was sinking underwater.
Nothing felt real, nothing but those hideous bulging eyes, glaring at him,
expressing an epitaph of utter hatred. He could feel his escape, his release,
coming on swift feathery wings.

Until she released him
and the nausea of his reality returned. She threw him to the ground with her
now blood-stained hands, her furious eyes now contemplative. Alan lay on the
floor, trying to retrieve his breath.
Littered on the floor all about him were hundreds upon hundreds of egg shells.

Broken. And empty. And
he wished he were dead.

As the tears flowed,
and the cold seeped once again into his skin, he prayed for a warm death and to
be coddled by eternal sleep.
He was then pulled, slowly and deliberately, to his knees.
“It’s hard, isn’t it? Severing ties?” she asked, in a treacherously quiet
voice. Holding his right arm painfully in place, she reached behind her. Her
grip was otherworldly strong. He struggled, weakly. And then he saw the knife.

“It can be a quick
process,” she said regretfully, tightening her grip on his wrist. A cry of pain
escaped his lips.
“But you,” she whispered, meeting his gaze. “For you, it’s not the case.”
She lowered the knife’s ragged edge slowly to where the arm met the shoulder.
For the briefest of moments, Alan saw himself in her eyes. Then they flashed
angrily, and she pushed.

* * * * * *

The knife ripped
though the crusty loaf of bread that Alan had bought himself the previous day.
He was late for school because he hadn’t slept well that night and his mother
had also neglected to wake him. As a result, he decided not to bother going in
at all.
The dim light of day shone through the blinds of the kitchen window, casting
shadows across his pale, thin face. When he had finished with the knife, Alan
placed it back in its hiding place, inside the fan oven, which his father
almost never used.
His mother did not object to this. Her neck bored an ugly scar, a souvenir from
Valentines Day, last year.

Alan looked at her
now, sitting in her chair, gazing at nothing at all. Her auburn hair framed the
gentle face which many had likened to his own. Her cheekbones were gaunt, more
so than his. She was not eating the slices of toast that he had laid out for
her.
Valentines Day was fast approaching again, and it was a day that Alan felt
nothing but contempt for. He was sure his mother had similar reservations, but
it was difficult to tell.
Few emotions were ever openly expressed, except perhaps one of distant longing.
A bland memory surfaced in his mind.

“I got a B in my biology
test yesterday,” he announced tonelessly. “It was on the human body. The
reproductive system and blood cells, you know.” He looked at her, smiling
wanly. He didn’t expect praise, or even interest.

Somewhere in the
surrounding labyrinth of suburbia, a dog barked.

The scream of rusty
door hinges accompanied the arrival of Alan’s father. He stood there in the
doorway of the kitchen, wincing in the dim morning light and reeking of the
cheap piss they passed off for beer in Nolan’s bar. Alan couldn’t tell if he’d
just woken up or if he’d just dragged himself through the front door. The side
of his face shone with grime. It looks as though he’s been lying face-down in a
rotting fish pile, thought Alan. There was a tear in his shirt, and Alan
suddenly found himself thinking about a documentary he had seen dealing with
the subject of rape victims.
Alan’s stomach clenched as his father cleared his throat as audibly as a dying
horse.

“Mornin’” he grunted,
as he stumbled over to the table and sat down heavily. The kitchen door closed
behind him, again with screaming hinges, and the door handle fell loose. He
glanced blearily across the table and, after a moment’s hesitation, reached
over and simply took the slices of bread sitting in front of Alan’s mother.
She didn’t bat an eyelid. She continued to stare out the window, where the
light drifted in.
“Rustle us up some bacon there, Al, there’s a good lad.” his father said,
smiling wolfishly. Crumbs sprayed from his mouth as he began to chew noisily.
Alan turned with a look of disgust and began searching the presses for the
black frying pan.
“Thought I heard you talking there a minute ago,” rumbled between chews. “What
were you sayin’?”
Alan’s hand passed over the sewing scissors he had hidden in the press, his
hand still searching.
“Just talkin’ about school,” he replied timidly. His hand grasped the handle of
the frying pan. He suddenly wished he had gone in and simply faced the
principal’s disapproving stare for being late.

“Isn’t today a school
day?” Alan’s father asked, reading his mind.

“No, it’s a bank
holiday.”

A sigh emanated from
Alan’s father. Alan held the frying pan up defensively. His father was finished
chewing and had now turned to look at him with his dark navy eyes.
With a slight grunt, he rose from his chair. Steadily now, he walked
deliberately around the table towards the presses. Alan saw his mother tense as
he passed her. He stood before him now, looking directly down into Alan’s eyes.
He placed one arm on the counter, blocking his escape. Another sigh.
“What were you saying about school?”

It was barely a
question, just empty words. Alan knew what was coming. The ticking clock that
hung on the wall was suddenly explosively loud.

“…just how glad I was
that today was a bank holi-”

A hard slap across the
side of the head, a warning from his father.

“Don’t lie to me. It’s
not a bank holiday. What were you
talking about?”

Alan held his head
with one hand, his other reassuringly gripping the black frying pan handle. He
knew he would never do what he wanted to at that moment. The dull throbbing
pain ebbed away slowly, mercifully, making way for the insensible inevitable.
The straightened up as defiantly as he dared.
“I got a B in my Biology test.” He spat out the word test far more aggressively
than intended. “It was on the human body and I was telling mom tha-”

He had been expecting
it, but this next slap caused his vision to blur and his ears to ring. His ear
burned red and he was sent sprawling to the floor.

“For CHRIST sake Alan,
when are you going to stop this?!” the man screamed at him. “The TRUTH,
dammit!”

Now, almost completely
sober, he stood above Alan, glaring down at him. Alan looked into his eyes and
saw an all too familiar fury and anger there.
He was breathing heavily and the left side of his face had begun to twitch.
Alan, scrambling to his knees, pushed at the side of his face, urging the pain
that felt like electricity to go away. He looked over at his mother, who was
standing now and looking at him with sympathy. She moved as if to intervene,
but hung back, helplessly, when Alan’s father raised his hand again.

“Just STOP, all
right?!” he roared at Alan, and landed another slap to the side of his head,
causing him to crash into the breakfast cabinet. “Just…fucking stop!”

Alan, still winded,
reached desperately into the cabinet, searching for a weapon.

But as his fingers
gripped the sides, the cabinet slammed shut.

Alan cried out in
pain, looking up at his father. There were angry tears in his fathers eyes as
he dropped to his knees, his hands outstretched. Alan pulled on the hand that
was trapped, freeing it.

In this process, he
lost two fingernails.

“Al…” his father
cried, noticing the blood on his hand. “Al, I…”
As his father sank into a quivering wreck, Alan scurried to his feet. He
grabbed the loaf of bread that still lay on the counter and tucked it under his
arm. With his left hand, he cradled his bleeding fingers and then ran out of
the room. His mother stayed, gazing at her son and then back to the man who had
once been her husband.
She never said a word.

Alan did not leave his
room until 6 a.m. the following morning, when he awoke with a start.

* * * * * *

It was dark again.
Alan was wet.
Was this a prison?
Was this hell?
…was this rain?

It was unpleasantly warm, like saliva. It made no sound as it fell, or if it
did, it was drowned out by the piercing and repeated squeal of the wheels on
his chair.
Alan’s eyes passed over the armrests. They were stained. Chemicals, the like
they use to treat hospital patients, had stained this chair.

This is a throne for
the sick, he thought, for the diseased.

Fearfully, and with
considerable effort, he peered behind him to see who was pushing the chair. He
felt no relief when he saw that there was no one was there.
As he arrived at the heart of the room, he became aware of a malignant
presence, not behind him, but before him.

“Be quiet now, my little boy
Please lie down to sleep…”

Shuddering beyond his
control, Alan slowly and painfully raised his eyes to look.
Before him was a wheelchair, much like his own, resting upon the rusty grated
floor. The twisted metal of the chair had warped hideously in order to caress
its singing occupant. She wore the hospital gown that was given to those who
did not have long to live. It was white, with blue birds on it. The hem, it was
torn.

“Mum is sitting by your bed
Singing rock-a-bye…”

Her hair, hanging like
seaweed, completely masked her face as she leaned over the bundle in her arms.
It was wrapped in white cloth and from it emanated a newborn’s piercing
screams. She held it close to shield it from the rain. Yet her tears fell in
the cloth, and the baby was wet.

Mum is so very…tired
She badly needs to rest…”

At this point, a
shuddering sob could not be repressed and the blanket fell from the baby’s
crown. Alan peered into the bundle and then recoiled in shock.

A dark hole opened
there and all the world was screams. He stared in horror at the milky smooth
skin where the child’s eyes should have been. Denied its sight, the screaming
child did not know it was blind because it always had been.

“It is dark and late at night…”

Alan cringed in
disgust and contempt as he realised that this shrieking child was being lifted
towards him. He could not move as the hole in its face opened wider and the
shattering cries in the night drowned out all else.
Wider and wider until all was black and he could not see.

He screamed.

“Go to sleep my child…”

* * * * * *

The blinding morning
sun had maintained its level of brilliance right into the afternoon as Alan
walked absent-mindedly home. His bag hung loosely over one shoulder, the broken
zipper barely saving his books from falling. He yawned loudly as a car passed
in the opposite direction. Provided he didn’t run into anyone, this could
easily be the most enjoyable part of the day. Free from the sterilely polite
conversation that he endured at school, he could take as long as he liked to
walk home.

No one would notice if
he strolled in late and if they did, their reactions would be no different than
if he had strolled in early.
He walked at a slow and steady pace, enjoying the warm sun beating at the back
of his neck.

A pale bruise
garnished his features and the side of his face throbbed slightly whenever he
smiled. It wasn’t a major issue.

As he walked past the
window of the local pet adoption centre, a cool breeze passed through his
polyester shirt, which gave him goose bumps. It was uncharacteristically warm
for February.

“Alan!”

He turned to see who
had called, just as he brushed his unkempt and only slightly greasy hair out of
his eyes.
A girl needlessly holding the straps of her backpack was walking towards him.
Her normally straight blonde hair was tied up in what seemed like a bizarre
fashion to Alan. Both the top and bottom buttons of her white school blouse
were open, causing it to flap in the breeze.

This was Denise. And
she was smiling pleasantly. At him.

“Were you calling me?”
he asked her. Though the breeze had passed, his goose bumps remained.
“No, I meant the other Alan beside you!” she replied with good nature. Out of
the corner of his eye, Alan glimpsed his reflection in the pet shop window. She
bit her lip and then smiled at him airily.

“Mind if I walk with you?”

Alan shrugged in what
he desperately hoped was offbeat and cool manner. She fell into step beside him
as he resumed his steady pace. He glanced at Denise from the corner of his eye,
being careful so that she wouldn’t see him doing so.

“Nice day, huh?” she
said, swinging her arms in a deliberately bored manner. “You could almost lie
in the grass.” Alan laughed sheepishly.

“It’s probably still
soaked from yesterday though.”

“Was it raining
yesterday?”

“I… think so. Wasn’t
it?”
“You’re living in the past, man!” she laughed, ignoring his hesitation. She
locked eyes with his, suddenly serious. “How are you ever going to…live?”
They stared at each other for a moment before she burst into infectious
laughter.

“You know, I wouldn’t
disapprove to any major degree if you wanted to hang out sometime” she intoned
casually as they turned into a quiet estate.

“Definitely,” replied
Alan, uncharacteristically at ease. “It’s Martin and Rob you usually hang out
with, right?”

“Right. We’re in a
band…. apparently”
She laughed at Alan’s quizzical stare.
“We don’t sing, we don’t write songs, and we don’t practice. But we generally
hang out in Rob’s garage and he thinks he’s a musician. So…band.”

“I think I like that,”
Alan reflected. “Well, I have a tambourine and I don’t know how it works, so if
it’s cool, maybe I’ll bring that over sometime?”

“Go for it, dude!”

As they crossed the
green that served as a handy shortcut across the vast estate, Alan caught a
scent of Denise’s perfume. It smelled of rich amber.

“Hey, what’s the name
of that film with Sandra Bullock and the trains?”

Alan remained quiet
for a moment as he pondered this.
“Trainspotting?”

“Ha, yeah right!” she
laughed. “No seriously, she falls in love with the guy, but it’s the wrong
guy…”

Loving the sound of
her laugh, Alan tried to make her do it again.

“Oh, Speed!” he
replied, somewhat overdramatically. Denise smirked, which was disappointing,
but then slapped him playfully on the arm.

“Useless. It was on
last night, and it’s driving me nuts, I’ve seen it a hundred times!”

“Are you sure you
didn’t dream this film?”

She slapped him again,
laughing as he tried to dodge under her arm. They continued to play-argue right
up until Alan’s front door, several doors down from Denise’s.

“All right, so
Saturday then, Rob’s garage?” She unexpectedly wrapped her arms around him and
gave him a tight hug as she asked the question. Alan repressed a shiver of
pleasure as he felt her breasts press up against him.

“Sure thing. I might
be a little late, because I have to look after my Mom for most of the morning,
but I can be there in the afternoon.”

The casual chemistry
was rapidly dissolving, like sugar in water. Alan noticed her playing with the
straps on her backpack restlessly.

She was going to leave!

“If you’d like, you
can come in for a cup of tea? She’s probably sleeping now anyway.”

She looked at him with
an expression that he would dwell on for the rest of the week. It was, to his
eternal regret, the same polite regard that his teachers and classmates always
reserved for him.

Just him.

“It’s fine,” he said,
dejectedly. “You probably need to get home anyway, right?” She nodded as he
pulled on the door handle and stepped into the doorway.
“See you on Monday.”
What he saw in her face as polite confusion was in fact complimented by a deep
and sincere pity. She gazed at the door that separated them for a moment before
turning to walk home.

The brilliant sun shone upon her hair, upon the grass she walked on and upon
the house that Alan had just entered.

* * * * * *

A broken gurney rested
at Alan’s feet.

The raging fires that
lit up the four corners had secured asylum from the terrible darkness. The
prison cell was still infinite and this sanctuary was but a prison of another
sort. The fire in the south corner blazed painfully near his naked skin,
searing across his ossified back.

Hideous, trickling laughter emerged from the gloom, inexplicably bringing the
image of shiny black beetles to his mind. Alan’s eyes strayed across the floor,
over the many broken gurneys until they rested on the heart of the room, upon
which was mounted a pulpy cocoon.

The strands of the cocoon stretched indefinitely into the night sky and also
deep in to the roots of the floor. It quivered suddenly and intensely as he
approached it, lumps of the monstrosity falling to the floor and sizzling.

The foul stench of
rotting meat was pungent and overpowering. Alan retched slightly as he fell
before it.

“…help…me…”

There, trapped in the
walls of the cocoon, was a face. It held the same meaty texture of the walls
and it was crying, oozing, tears. These eyes, now so full of sorrow, were the
same he had seen before, glaring with such intense monstrosity.

“…release…”

With a particularly
violent shudder, the cocoon shook again, shedding layer after layer. Stretches
of ruined meat fell to the floor, revealing the true nature of the beast.

Behind the walls of the
haven, naked and newborn, was a woman. Her wet body clearly exhibited
exhaustion on a profound scale.

Her long hair hung
over her face as she stared at him, her eyes racked with agony.

Her arms tied with
steel wire, she hung just above Alan’s head. And as the flesh on her bones
began to decay, a low scream began to rise from within her.

“whyyyyYYYYYYYY?!”

Sinews and tendons
became visible. She writhed uncontrollably.

“What do you WANT?!”

Rib bones rose and
pierced her skin like wet tissue.

“Just let me go. Let
me GO!!”

Her eyes shrank into
nothing. The skin fell from her skull. All that was left grinned down at Alan,
unbearably.

* * * * * *

The evening rain
pattered upon the windowpane of the grey kitchen. It blended into a dull
throbbing hum that served to numb the mind of the room’s only occupant.

A broken plate lay in
pieces on the floor in the furthest corner of the room.

Seated upon a chair,
with his head in his hands, a figure sat in a brown dressing gown. A cup of
coffee rested beside him and it was as cold as the room. A whiskey bottle next
to it had received considerably more attention.
The man’s elbows were folded upon a newspaper, blocking a page from view.
On the other, there was an ecology article regarding birds.

Primarily, it
described the percentage of chicks that survive after leaving the nest.
Scattered across the table were numerous scraps of paper, many of them with
illegible writings upon. Some words, or even sentences, could be deciphered.

“…nightmares…”

“…delusional in terms of…”

“…male authority figures…”

“…mother…”

“…same figure became central to his…”

“…to aggression towards…”

“…imaginary…”

One scrap of paper,
bigger than the others, rested at the head of the table. It reads in bold
print:

“Centralia Central
Mental Hospital

Progress Report

Date: 14/2/’07

Patient Name: Alan Nolan”

A great sob emanated
from the man as he sinks into his arms, crying uncontrollably. The newspaper
falls to the floor as he moves his arms. The page that was previously covered
bore the following story:

Tragedy prevented in outskirts of
Centralia

Local teenager, Alan Nolan, made a suicide
attempt last night, but was thwarted at the last minute by his father, Derek
Nolan.
Derek comments that he had known his son was not of sound mind and had
suspected that it was due to the death of his wife, Alan’s mother, Helena over
a year ago. Yet he states that he never would have imagined his son would take
things so far, and that he thought it was a stage that would pass.
The policemen that arrived on the scene explain that Alan had attempted to hang
himself from the rafters of the attic. He had almost succeeded when Derek had
intervened; having noticed that the staircase to the attic was up. Considering
the near identical nature of his wife’s own suicide, a woman who had allegedly
struggled with depression for many years, it is understandable that this has
landed an incredibly traumatic blow up Derek Nolan’s shoulders.
“That man is an absolute saint,” says one reliable source. “I’ve seen him
working into the early hours of the morning, dealing with drunkards, trying to
support his family. More than once I’ve seen him, while on my way to work, just
walking home from cleaning the bar. Usually filthy as well, I feel genuine
sympathy for him.”

Alan was transported immediately to a local
mental health care centre and is currently unfit for questioning.
We at the Centralia
Post extend our deepest sympathies, both to him and his grief-stricken father.

Write a Review
Did you enjoy my story? Please let me know what you think by leaving a review! Thanks,
stephenhill777

Colin Milroy:
To begin, I don't think that the first review of this story was fair at all. Based on the popularity of this story, I would say the one-star review hasn't done much harm, but I still felt the need to address it. Now I will do my best to be constructive.I liked the concept of this story. I found i...

Trahelion:
While I started this tale hoping for an actual Anthropophagi monster story, I was quickly reminded that humanity is by far the most frightening beast. The reason being, we're real and there is not much we haven't done.Great work here, and at the end, I was expecting the lady narrating to be lying...

Kiz16:
After a truly shocking start to the story, I found the style and content slowed down as the author introduced a varied group of characters who I thought were fleshed out very well. After a slow couple of chapters, I found this story difficult to leave with the tension growing within the house. Yo...

Alex Rushmer:
I read the first chapter, and I'm not sure I can handle anymore, but I certainly liked what I read. The idea of the drug, Fortis, was very interesting, and I enjoyed how you conveyed its effects. The beginning is very intriguing. I think I'd like to see you do a little more with the main characte...

duggsy:
This kept me intrigued, I only intended on reading 1 chapter but couldn't stop until I'd read the whole thing. The only let-down were a few spelling mistakes hence the 3 stars but otherwise a great read.

Alex Rushmer:
I like the intrigue that you introduce from the very beginning of the story. The idea of the girl waking up in the alley with no memory of how she got there and with injuries is very interesting. It was very well done. There were a lot of grammatical errors that need to be fixed though. I think t...

MusketeerAdventure:
Well - I really enjoyed this very much! The whole idea of a shared haunting really intrigues me. I thought you did a wonderful job; and I really liked the idea of hearing from the first ghost's point of view. It would be interesting to read more about these two - and the ghost-busters that inf...

Sarah_M_G:
This story was truly gripping from start to finish. The way the author used Scottish dialect throughout the novel really helped to put you in he in the place where it was all happening. Every character was well described and thought out. How they all fitted together really worked and loved how t...

:
The book was hella great. You never know what's going to happen next. There's a lot of clues that shows to the next scene. I thought Miley and David would marry each other in this book but too my disappointment, they didn't. I have a ques. Will there be a part two to this book?

Shelley Miller:
The ideas and the set up and this are amazing! The feel of the story goes from science fiction to horror to suspense all in a big, thrilling ball. I really like your character so far and her powers and the idea of the ark being a person. The world is intense and gritty and clever as well. While a...

Frank Pilato:
I wanted to be sure to comment on this, as I did not read the whole story through, but I am impressed with you.....very impressed. ......................................................................................................................................................................